Countdown Begins for Race For Re-Entry 5-K Walk, Run, Ride in Soundview
by David Greene
Organizers and supporters of a pilot program that began last spring assisting those recently released from incarceration, with ways to more easily transition back into the community, held a kick-off for The Second Annual Race for Re-Entry 5-K Walk, Run and Ride that will kick-off in Soundview Park on Saturday, April 21.
Organizers announced a host of events ending with the 5-K event, it’s new sponsors and celebrated the launching of a new website allowing online registrations during a “Meet up” on Friday, March 9, at the Manhattan College of New York, located at 463 East 149 Street in the Hub.
Organizers and supporters limber up before the First Annual Race for Re-Entry 5K race in Soundview Park in 2017.–Photo courtesy of Race for Re-Entry.
According to Jen Lackard, the founder and program manager for the New York Area Re-Entry Meetup, explained, “The race for Re-Entry is a community collaborative which sits at the intersection of public health and public safety.”
Lackard added, “The Race for Re-Entry was created as a response to the disproportionate impact of mass incarceration in the borough with over 15,000 arrests in Bronx county each year.”
The March 9 “meetup” was a social gathering joining members of law enforcement, criminal justice professionals, local non-profits, employers and housing providers who connect and discuss problems and solutions to the difficult issue of keeping returning offenders from returning to jail.
In a promotional video for the group made last year, Assemblyman and Bronx Democratic Party Chair Marcos Crespo said of the program, “This amazing organization that has brought people together over a period of a week for a number of events to celebrate, support and empower those who have come across the criminal justice system and their loved ones around them.”
Crespo added, “We can create better opportunity’s and open more doors and make sure that all of us are moving forward together.”
Those wishing to participate in the 5-K are encouraged to participate in a “fit camp,” to prepare walkers, joggers and runners with free membership at the Bronx YMCA on Castle Hill Avenue, between March 19 and April 19.
Participants have fun at the start of last years first-ever Race for Re-Entry 5K race in Soundview Park.–Photo courtesy of Race for Re-Entry
On Saturday, April 14, the groups Community Hoops Event comes to the Sotomayor Houses Center, located at 1000 Rosedale Avenue. The event will feature a youth game at 10 a.m., a wheelchair game at 11:30 a.m., a woman’s game a 1 p.m. and a men’s game at 2:30 p.m.
Saturday, April 21 is the Youth 5-K Walk, Run and Ride, which kicks off at 8 a.m. at Lafayette Avenue and Soundview Avenue and ends at the YMCA on Soundview Avenue.
After the 5-K event, the group will host a Youth Resource Fair, beginning at 10 a.m. at the YMCA, located at 2 Castle Hill Avenue.
Those wishing to participate in the upcoming activities can register at the Race For Re-Entry website: www.race4reentry.com or by calling (347) 850-RACE.
On Wednesday, February 14, Mayor Bill de Blalsio announced plans for a new jail to be built at 320 Concord Avenue in Mott Haven, the current site of an NYPD vehicle impound yard. While other jails across the city will be expanded, the new Bronx jail will be the only new prison built as part of the mayor’s 10-year plan to close the infamous Rikers Island.
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